


Still Something Alive

by therealgloria



Category: Guns N' Roses
Genre: Angst, End of an era, Final Goodbye, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24986098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealgloria/pseuds/therealgloria
Summary: I furrow my brow at him. “What?”“Isaid,” he mutters, reluctant, “I wish you had stayed. After England. Finished the tour. We could have sent Gilby home.”I look at him skeptically. He stares back, his features a jumble of defiance, guilt, and earnestness. I want desperately to laugh but I bite it back...
Relationships: Axl Rose/Izzy Stradlin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Still Something Alive

**Indiana in August, 1993**

The number of roads I have traveled probably ranges into the infinite now, but somehow all roads still seem to lead here. During the day, I walk down by the river and feel the sun burning the back of my neck. At night, I wander through the orchard, and the purple summer wind blows through the fruit trees. They whisper to me, telling me secrets.

Life is suddenly simple, and I have plenty of time to think. Plenty of time to be on my own. I don’t answer the phone when it rings. I ride my bike around the property and sometimes I climb onto the roof and lay under the stars. I read, and I cook, and I wait for him, because he’s coming as surely as the seasons change.

But I’m patient. I can wait, and I know all about the inevitable. Indiana won’t let me go, and I don’t want it to. It all feels so right, being here again. It feels like pulling on my most worn pair of shoes, softened with wear and time. The sweetness and the nostalgia and the faint tang of bitterness, metallic in the back of my mouth, is like black coffee going down my throat. I wish I could live in it all forever.

I’m in the kitchen making tea when my brother calls and leaves a voicemail during my third week back in Lafayette. I don’t pick up, just pour my milk and listen to his voice issuing through the bad plastic speaker. I’m staring at the poster over my sink. I like this one. It’s got green, plastic-looking palms on the front, and a candy-red macaw perched on a mossy branch.

_Wish you’d pick up the phone, I’m just trying to check in on you. Hope you’re taking care of yourself. I’m having a good time, we’ve been hiking every day, and when we’re not hiking, we surf. I’m getting enough of a tan that I’ll be able to give you a run for your money when I get back. Let me know if you need anything. Don’t brood too much._

I stir my tea slowly and stare at the parrot, haloed by birds of paradise. _Beautiful Costa Rica!_ I’m not brooding, and I tell him as much when I pick up the phone and call him that afternoon. There’s more than one message blinking on my answering machine, but I can’t bring myself to listen to them. Partly because it’s been so nice living without anyone telling me what to do or asking me for anything, but also because I don’t want to know whether or not Axl has called. And if he did, what he had to say.

“Have you talked to any of them recently?”

“No,” I answer, cradling the phone against my shoulder. I’m making my bed. “They know where to find me. I haven’t talked to anyone, lately.”

“Including me.”

“Sorry,” I say, and sit down on my blanket. Its rough, bright fibers snag the peeling guitar callouses on my fingers. “I’ll be better. How’s your trip?”

“Good. I’ll tell you more when I get home.”

“Ride some good waves for me.”

“Oh, you know it.”

I hear his lighter spark as he lights a cigarette. Inhale, exhale, and then —

“So are you okay, Iz?”

“Yes,” I say honestly. I sit down on my bed and light up too. “I’m fine. Really, Joe. I’m happy here.”

He makes a dubious noise. I can see his skeptical expression in my mind’s eye. “I mean it,” I say. “I am.”

“But for how long?”

“Who cares? I’m happy for now.”

On Thursday evening, when the shadows get long, I go down the side steps of the house and into the overgrown garden. Goldenrod and evening primrose ripple in the breeze like yellow chiffon, and the scent of lemons is everywhere in the air. My mind almost drifts back to days long gone by the railroad tracks on evenings like these, but I don’t let it. It’s enough to feel them without thinking about them too. Remembering is like pressing on a bruise. For some inexplicable reason I want to, to see just how much it would hurt, but there’s an ache there that can turn too quickly into regret.

The grass is cool on my bare feet and before I know it I’ve carried myself to the front yard. It could use a mow. The tops of the trees are just starting to glow orange when I hear the car coming. It’s not loud, but it breaks the silence.

I’ve been wondering what this meeting will be like for a long time, and now that it’s so close at hand, I’m surprised by the way my heart is pounding. I’m not wearing a shirt, and suddenly I wish I was. My instincts are screaming at me to go back in the house, to wait for him to come to me, but that would be running from him and I just can’t stomach it. Too many people in this life run from and grovel to Axl Rose.

A few seconds later, the car pulls into view. It’s a rental, clearly, a sedan. Not a beater, but nothing fancy. I can just see him behind the wheel. He’s too far away to see details yet. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder how I look to him, standing alone here at the top of the hill in my overgrown yard, barefoot and shirtless with my dreads a mess and rips in the knees of my old skating jeans. He’s come a long way for this.

When he pulls up and puts the car in park next to my Camaro, I finally get a good look at him. He’s still got the beard, but he looks cleaner, better rested. He’s only been off the road for a few weeks. He kills the engine and looks up through the window at me — I raise my eyebrows at him. When he opens the car door he stands up but doesn’t get out from behind it, leans his forearms on top of it, keeping it in front of his body like a shield. In case I attack him, I guess. The quiet, heavy with cicadas, and all of the improbability and strangeness of him being here hangs between us for a moment.

“Nice jeans. I’m sure you couldn’t afford to buy some new ones.”

“Nice car. Is the jet in the shop?”

We stare at each other. His eyes are a light, light green in the sunset.

I can’t help it. I crack a smile.

“C’mon. I’ll show you around.”

I turn and walk away, suddenly gleeful. My land rises up under my feet, urging me along, and every step is easier than the last.

When I glance over my shoulder to see if he’s following me, we make eye contact. He’s got this look on his face, like he doesn’t know what to make of me, like he doesn’t quite belong here and isn’t sure how he got back.

“Where are you going?”

His deep voice rumbles through the warm air and for a moment I get the urge to close my eyes and let it reverberate through me. A question so simple and so wide open that for a moment I don’t know how to answer it.

“The orchard.”

I’ve stopped and he catches up to me, takes his sunglasses off of his head and hooks them onto his shirt.

“You have an orchard?”

“Yeah.”

He looks at me and I see his eyes travel over my features. My messy hair. My brow, my cheeks, my nose. My lips.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

He squints and looks away from my face.

I stop at the top of the hill, a long slope down to the woods lined with pears and apples. There’s water trickling out of the irrigation taps, bubbling quietly and dripping off of the grass.

“What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful,” he says simply, and I can hear in his voice that he means it.

The two trees right next to us stand out as more stark and gnarled than any others around them. They spiral out of the ground in a scraggly sort of way, their bark dotted with lichen. Almost all of their limbs have fallen off, leaving only their thin, twisted trunks.

“What are these?” he asks, staring at them.

“Peaches.”

“They’re a little worse for wear.”

I nod in agreement. “You’d be surprised, though.” There are a few fruits still trembling on the sole branch stretched against the sky, and I point them out to him. “I got fruit off both of them this summer. I know they look dead, but they’re hardy. I don’t know how many more years they’re going to last, but somehow there’s still something alive in there.”

I can see the way he’s looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and when I turn he doesn’t even try to hide the raw longing on his face.

“Izzy…”

“What?” I ask, each heartbeat painful in my chest. I haven’t heard him say my name very much recently. He takes one step closer, just one, like he’s afraid I might walk away or hit him if he comes any nearer.

“We should talk about why I’m here.”

I blink. “I already know why you’re here.”

He tilts his head just slightly, considering this. “I’m not sure you do.”

I tut, impatient, and open my mouth but he cuts me off. “I’ve been trying to call you ever since I got off tour.”

“I haven’t been answering the phone, sorry. For anybody. It’s nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal, huh?”

I shake my head, lying. He sighs and crosses his arms. He won’t stop staring at my face, like he’s trying to find every tiny change in my features from the last time we met and commit it all to memory.

“I wish you had stayed.”

I furrow my brow at him. “What?”

“I _said_ ,” he mutters, reluctant, “I wish you had stayed. After England. Finished the tour. We could have sent Gilby home.”

I look at him skeptically. He stares back, his features a jumble of defiance, guilt, and earnestness. I want desperately to laugh but I bite it back. I doubt he’d appreciate that kind of reaction.

“Axl, you know I couldn’t have.”

“But _why?_ ” he asks, and even though I think he meant it as a demand, it comes out as a plea. “ _Why_ , Izzy? You can do whatever you want. You’ve made it a point to show that to me.”

“Okay, I _wouldn’t_.”

He takes another step towards me and grabs my hand, as though he needed to do it before he had time to think better of it. His hands are cool and dry, his thumb pressing lightly and eagerly into my palm. I stare at him.

“I’m asking you to come back.”

I have to fight the urge to back away from him. I’ve rarely seen him like this. Seeking, almost desperate.

“Axl —”

“Izzy.” He looks deep into my eyes. His green ones are darkening steadily in the orange haze that has fallen over everything. “I’m seriously, truly, deeply asking you to come back. We can renegotiate the contract. Draw something up that’s completely different. Anything you want.”

I smile at him, tug my hand from his grasp, and run it once through his hair. “Anything I want, huh?”

He just looks at me.

I chuckle and let my hands drop to my sides, shove them in my pockets. I look past him, down the hill and over the woods, where the sun has dropped and is slanting through the trees.

“Don’t do this, Axl. Please.”

“What? Izzy, look at me.”

And I do. I have no fear of him, and he knows it. “I’m not doing this with you. I’m not going to keep allowing you to make promises you’d only break, even if I did give you a chance to keep them.”

“Then don’t, because that’s not what I’m asking. I know you’re not happy here. Come back to California with me.”

“You know I’m not happy?”

“I know you better than anyone. There’s no way you can be.”

I look at him, amused. Shake my head.

“C’mon, Iz. Just give me a number.”

“It’s not about numbers.”

“But —”

“Stop,” I whisper. “It’s too late.”

He closes the distance between us in three steps, circles his fingers around my wrist, and presses his lips to mine. I don’t take my hands out of my pockets, but I close my eyes and lean into the kiss before I’ve even thought about it. His lips are warm, smooth, and the feeling of skin sliding on skin as he tilts his head further zings through my nerve endings and down my entire body.

After a long moment, he pulls away and looks at me. A pale blue twilight has fallen now, and his eyes search my face.

“Damn you,” he says, not moving his hand from my wrist. “Damn you. How can you still do this to me, after this long? After everything?”

I don’t say anything, just raise my eyebrows and allow one corner of my mouth to turn up.

“Fuck, Izzy,” he mutters. “I never know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking,” I say, taking my hands out of my pockets, “that I _always_ know what you’re thinking.”

He frowns and opens his mouth, probably to retort, but I take him into my arms and kiss him again before he can. He’s stiff with surprise at first but relaxes into me quickly, his hands settling on my hips, the pads of his fingers pressing against my bare skin. Our mouths brush, press, and work against each other, and I can feel the blood rushing through every single one of my capillaries. There’s heat gathering below my waistline, and I know he feels it too.

After several much, much longer moments this time, he pulls away and looks at me again.

“So is that a yes?”

I can’t help it this time, and I laugh. Lay my cheek against his, feel the rough orange stubble scratch my skin. Breathe in his scent, his deodorant, feel the worn cotton of his t-shirt under my hands. “Is that what this is? You’re trying to seduce me back into the band?”

“What? No! Although, if that’s what it takes, I’m not opposed…” There’s a smile in his voice and I have to smile too. How can I not? The absurdity, the impossibility that there’s still some bit of love between us defies all logic and reason.

“That’s not what it takes. And if we do this now, I don’t know how many more times we will. Maybe never.”

“Izzy.” He’s still.

“I told you already. I’m not coming back.” There’s finality in my voice and I’m surprised when he doesn’t immediately step away from me and make for his car.

I’m watching his face, and I can see dozens of thoughts, protests, pleas, and condemnations flit through his mind in the space of a few seconds. I don’t realize it, but I’m holding my breath waiting to see which one he’ll pick. And somehow, some way, inexplicably, he manages to surprise me.

When he kisses me again it’s in earnest. More firmly, more insistently. What can I do but kiss him back? I’m powerless to deny him this, and what’s more, I don’t want to. Because part of me still wants him. Because part of me knows this is the last time. He’ll regret it all later, without a doubt. But who am I to stand in the way of a miracle?

So I kiss him back. Allow his tongue to touch mine, and then sweep across it. His hands go to my face, cradle my jaw, and I twist mine into his hair. It’s silky, sliding between my fingers. I feel hyper-aware of every touch, every feeling, every heartbeat. I can feel his skin heating up under my hands, and when he runs his bare palms down my back, I shiver at the shock that shoots between my legs. We stop kissing only long enough for me to lift his shirt over his head.

It’s almost completely dark now and fireflies are appearing in the woods, blinking in time with the heavy thrum of cicadas. There are insects hovering over the grass too, but I barely notice them, or the darkness. There’s a huge golden moon rising over the trees and everything seems so fantastically lovely that I feel like I’m in a dream. A beautiful, impossible dream, in which Axl Rose and I still care for each other, and he drove a day and a half to see me. To ask me to come back.

We lay down in the grass together, and I make sure that his bare back is protected by his t-shirt. He’s becoming more eager, more hungry for me. His hands are everywhere — my hair, my neck, my shoulders, my back. I move to the side of his throat and he tilts his head, opening up for me. His skin is tender here, and I brush my lips across it, lick it gently, nip at him. He sighs deeply, a shudder that runs through his entire body, and sinks even further down towards the earth.

When his hands run down my abdomen I suck in my breath. Light, light touches are traced above my beltline, swirling patterns that all lead in the same direction. I can feel myself pulsing, and he hasn’t even touched me yet. He unbuckles, slowly pushes my jeans down, and I pull them off the rest of the way. Even in the dark I can see his eyes. They’re burning with intensity, tracing every line of me the same way he traced my face. To remember.

I move back to him, take his face in one of my hands. Kiss his lips once, then move to the other side of his neck and down, down, down. I kiss him everywhere. His collarbone, his pectorals, his underarms, his shoulders, his sides. I can’t speak it but I need him to know what I’m not even sure that I know. Need him to understand.

I kiss all the way down to his hip bones, and then it’s my turn to unbutton his jeans, help him out of them. I can see through his shorts that he’s rock hard already, and I know that neither one of us is going to be long for the world. His hands grip my waist and he lays his cheek against my stomach, sighing deeply again. I know the words; he doesn’t have to say it. _I’ve missed you._

I reach out and trail my fingers lightly over his outline at first, and then touch him through his underwear more firmly with long strokes. His breath is short and his hand grips my hip. I massage him, squeeze him lightly, and he groans from the very back of his throat. He reaches out, touches me, covers me with his hand. My heartbeat revs up and before either one of us has even thought about it, he’s undressing me the rest of the way and I’m undressing him. He looks just like I remember. Hard, flushed to a darker pink above pale skin. He almost glows in the moonlight.

I turn my body and we lay down next to each other. Move my head until my lips fall onto his hip — his are already on me, kissing the interior of my thighs. He vibrates under my hands, under my mouth, and I can’t resist a few strokes of the beautiful orange hair above his hardness. My head is buzzing, full of the sounds of cicadas and the feeling of his lips dragging over my skin.

When he takes me in his mouth, I take him in mine. The duality is a heady feeling — his mouth, warm and wet around me, and the hot hardness of him on my tongue. I hollow my cheeks around him and we fall into a rhythm. Everything seems so loud, the pounding of blood in my ears, the occasional noise he makes, noise that I make, the nighttime sounds. There’s a hot liquid feeling gathering in my abdomen, tightening with every movement of his mouth. Warm winds rush through the trees, rush over us. _What are they saying to me now?_

We’re both so geared up that it doesn’t take long to be close. He gets there before me — I feel his rhythm falter, break, and he gasps around me before coming off of me with a wet _pop_. I double down, and one, two, three strokes later he finishes with a tremble and a low moan. I swallow around him, grasp him at the base and squeeze gently until he’s given me every drop he has and is moved to physically push me off. No sooner have I let go of him than he’s back upon me, head and hand in my lap. I don’t have to concentrate too hard to find the momentum from before, and before I know it whatever is in my stomach is exploding and I’m coming for him. I won’t say his name.

When I come back to myself, I can’t fathom how it seemed loud before. The night is quiet. Peaceful.

I wipe my mouth, wipe my hand on my discarded jeans. Look at him, and he’s looking at me. Sitting back on his elbows in the grass, long hair swept over one shoulder, gaze still burning into me the way it has all evening.

Mercifully, we sit forward and reach for each other at the same time. I’m not in his arms and he’s not in mine, but we are simultaneously in each other’s. He wraps a fist into my dreads, gently pulls my head back and looks me dead in the eyes. He’s searching for something, for the last time. I gaze back, open — there’s no reason to hide anymore. There hasn’t been for years now. Something passes over his features and for one burning moment I strongly suspect there are tears somewhere behind his eyes; but they don’t fall. We don’t speak. Instead, he releases me and lays us back on the grass.

We lay there under the stars together, our legs entwined. I watch him until he falls asleep. He looks older in sleep. Tired.

I let my eyes drift upwards and there, silhouetted darkly against the moon, are a few bedraggled peaches. The wind sweeps through the orchard again, and I watch as one of them falls, thudding dully onto the ground. Summer is ending.

For once, I suspect, Axl knows exactly what I’m thinking. He twitches in his sleep — he’s already letting me go. Some kind of ache passes through me, and I wonder how I could stave off pressing on a bruise only to willingly cover myself in them the next day. And, as the trees whisper and rustle, I wonder for the first time why they’ve bothered to tell me a secret that I already knew.


End file.
